


for beauty lives with kindness

by cherrytart



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Class Issues, Edward Little's Carefully Guarded Sense of Self, M/M, Repression, and we were in the arctic, cold boys who are in love but bad at it, what if we fucked and didn't talk about it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-24
Updated: 2020-10-24
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:03:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27177604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherrytart/pseuds/cherrytart
Summary: This must stop.It is unforgivable, what he has done, and it must end, here, now. He is First Lieutenant of HMS Terror, and this muststop.Each time, he tells himself it will. That this will be the end. And each and every time, he fails.
Relationships: Thomas Jopson/Lt Edward Little
Comments: 27
Kudos: 73





	for beauty lives with kindness

**Author's Note:**

> ah, i thought, I'll write a short porny oneshot to ease myself back into writing fandom stuff
> 
> *6000 words later* 
> 
> here it is, then
> 
> (title from [that one poem](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/50684/song-who-is-silvia-what-is-she) in _Two Gentlemen of Verona_ )

Beneath him, Jopson is panting. His breath shows in curls of white in the cool dark of the storeroom. Edward’s own would no doubt do likewise, were his head not buried tight against the meat of Jopson’s shoulder, inhaling the smell of clean skin and the captain’s spirits.

On the floor at their feet, Jopson’s waistcoat and woolens are a sorry state indeed, stained and soaked with whiskey. He will not tell Edward how they came to be so.

It is rare, on these occasions, for them to speak at all. This suits Edward well enough. He finds words clumsy, unwieldy things at the best of times, too quick to slip from his control. Better, surely, that he content himself with this – Jopson’s body yielding to his touch with uncanny ease, and the press of his prick into that safe, tender place the captain’s steward opens for him so readily.

He spends inside, cursing, and knows himself to be the most fortunate of men. Permits himself a slow stroke of Jopson’s soft hair, just that stray part that is forever falling over his eyes. Jopson will push it back into place by and by. If Edward had his way – in more things than this – he would fix the recalcitrant thing with his own hands whenever it chanced to misbehave, witnesses be damned.

That he has this – is permitted this, that Jopson has not pushed him off and away as would be meet and right for him to do – must suffice.

Jopson makes a soft grumbling sound, hip tilting up against the crate. He does not seem upset, but it is enough for Edward to pull away from him and let him attend to his uniform, knowing how he prizes the neatness of his person, turning his back to fasten his own trousers with still-shaking fingers. When he glances over his shoulder, he catches sight of Jopson bending to pick up his waistcoat, the strong line of his back as he stands again, and looks at Edward with his head tipped to the side.

He is so lovely.

Edward nods, as much an excuse to tear his eyes away as anything. He will go first.

Jopson squares his shoulders. “Sir.”

It is an acknowledgement, nothing more, but it cuts Edward to the quick.

 _This must stop._ It is unforgivable, what he has done, and it must end, here, now. He is First Lieutenant of HMS Terror, and this must _stop_.

Each time, he tells himself it will. That this will be the end. And each and every time, he fails. He follows Jopson down the ladder to the Orlop, to a shadowed corner of the Captain’s pantry, to the quiet of the great cabin once, in the middle of the day, in sheer wanton need of him. Here and there he takes his fill of him, of Thomas, a man whose name he cannot speak for the low shame it brings him, that he has done this to them both.

“Sir, you’ve -” Jopson is in front of him, close. He reaches out, and Edward is powerless to stop him as he is powerless to stop himself. He allows his stock to be tucked back into his collar, does not lean into the warmth of Jopson’s fingers. A tenderness he in truth does not deserve. “There.”

“Thank you, Jopson,” Edward winces when he hears himself, sounding as though he’d signalled for another glass of wine at dinner.

Jopson’s mouth quirks, something Edward notices he does to hold off nerves. No doubt he fears Edward will say more, will ask some other service of him, beyond what he has already rendered. His hand is still resting on the edge of Edward’s coat. Waiting for dismissal, as attentive in this as he is in all things.

Edward raises his chin – he is of a height with Jopson, shorter, perhaps, in truth, but his lieutenant’s coat and a build run burly and thickset on the Lancashire hills of his adolescence gives him the illusion of an inch or two’s superiority. Falters, at the last moment, and turns it to a nod, an uneasy jerking thing, as graceless as his speech. Good god, what the steward must think of him.

He turns his back to save himself, and leaves the storeroom, promising himself, as he has so many times before, that this will be an end to the whole sordid affair.

~

Edward has never considered himself as a particularly good man – with his proclivities, he could hardly claim the title. Still, he has striven to keep himself in check, succumbing only when it is safe to do so, when the need for recognition of what is coiled inside of him, for _contact_ , becomes too great to bear alone. Hardly ever has it happened at sea. He has risen to his current position through careful suppression of his unnatural desires, through scrupulous adherence to rank and protocol, and perhaps it is the pride he feels in his success that waits to catch him, trip him that he might fall.

His own pride, his own damnable weakness. His own, because he cannot, will not, blame Jopson.

 _Please,_ Jopson had breathed, the first time, and then, arching his neck back, his whole body pressed deliriously close to Edward’s, _sir._

Afterwards, he had knelt and buttoned Edward’s trousers closed, cheeks reddened, mouth hot and swollen from taking Edward’s prick, from when he had pulled Jopson off and upright, slid himself between the stewards thighs and pinned him to the wall to rut against him in bestial satisfaction, raking his nails along the pale flesh under Jopson’s striped shirt. Looking at Jopson then, soft eyed and well fucked, Edward had nearly run from the room. Had pulled away from him, shaking his head, and bid him rise immediately.

The damage was already done, though. It had been done two days out from Greenhithe, maybe, when he let his eyes linger too long on Jopson’s narrow back as Edward, Hodgson, and Irving sat waiting for Captain Crozier in the great cabin. Had been well in hand by Stromness, when he’d come up from below to find Jopson on deck in his shirtsleeves, slinging laundry in the sun and _laughing_ , full throated, at something Genge or Armitage had said.

Edward had hoarded the memory of that laughter all the way to Beechey Island, in a futile attempt to suppress the swoop of his stomach whenever he crossed Jopson’s path. That the steward was never anything but kind to him, was gentle and attentive even when he had surely noticed how Edward’s eyes followed him, was hard enough to bear.

Worse still, that Jopson was not only sweet to look upon, but the very image of all a steward, a _servant_ , should be, his behaviour and manners polished to perfection. If it had been no more than that, Edward might even then have kept his distance, torment though it was to do so. But once they had set off from Beechey in the spring of 1846, Edward, to his abject dismay, found he had left the last vestiges of his self control behind on that narrow spit of rock.

For had it not been Jopson who came and spoke to him, on those mornings (rarer, then) when the Captain had indulged too much with drink and could not be roused for a command meeting, so that Edward might take charge in his stead? And Jopson, who, with a perfectly innocent smile belied by the crinkle at the corner of his eyes, had asked him if he would very much mind switching from his usual seat in the wardroom for tonight’s officers dinner, so as to better position Commander Fitzjames somewhere – and here he had caught a tilt of merriment, he was sure, in the stewards face – where the least harm would be done to Captain Crozier’s composure?

Jopson, bearing tea strong enough to stand a spoon in on cold nights after the last dogwatch, when Gibson was ill with a racking cough and Dr MacDonald, fretting after losing young Jack Torrington, insisted he stay in bed. Jopson, leaning against the ship’s rail in his rare free moments, smoking a cigarette no doubt bummed from some marine or other (Edward’s jealousy is a dark and monstrous thing, an anvil all its own), jumping to stand at attention whenever an officer came by. Who had unfolded, just slightly, when Edward bade him take his ease, and then offered to fetch his scarf, _“Lest you catch a chill, Lieutenant Little, sir.”_

“ _Wouldn’t want that,”_ Edward had said, and then cursed his own forwardness, for it won him a smile from Jopson, a small, soft thing he wanted to kiss from the other man’s face. He had smiled back, though, unable to help it – and wasn’t that the damnedest thing?

He ought to have known, once they were frozen in again, and Captain Crozier’s dark moods became more frequent, Edward’s duties more onerous, that he would be in danger of slipping his control. The length of the arctic winter wore on them all, but Edward, selfishly he was sure, felt himself especially downcast by the grim polar night.

And Jopson, of course, had been there.

“ _It’s not so unusual, sir, to feel a touch of melancholy,”_ he remarked one evening, when Edward had, to his great embarrassment, growled at John that if the good Lord was mentioned one more time he would not be responsible for the aftermath. John had made a face reminiscent of a kicked spaniel and fled the wardroom. Hodgson, for all his faults the kindest and most easy going of men, had gone after him, pausing only to give Edward an uncommon look of deep censure.

Kneeling by the stove, blissfully unaware of the torture he put Edward through in taking such a position, Jopson spoke only once they were alone. _“If I may say. In Antarctica, I was taken bad – badly_ _—_ _the first few weeks without the sun. Didn’t know where my head was.”_

“ _You overcame it, though.”_ Edward leant forwards, his hands on his knees. _“Else you would not speak to me of it.”_ It did not come out as he wished, of course, sounding more like an admonishment than anything. Oh, but how he wanted Jopson’s secrets, his fears and his loves and memories. How safe he would keep them, if he only had a chance to prove it.

Jopson had not seemed offended, though. He gave the coal bucket at his feet a considering look, reached to pull down his cuffs, missing, thankfully, the jump in Edward’s throat as he caught a brief sight of Jopson’s forearms, graceful in their strength, the skin moon pale and lovely.

Having finished, it seemed, thinking over Edward’s words, he had nodded. “ _With help. And company. The captains held, well...a party of sorts, on the ice, to mark the new year. It was a balm to all of us, I think. Not just to celebrate. To remember.”_

“ _That we are not so far as all that, from home?”_ Edward felt in that moment, he recalls, that he might say anything, and Jopson would know exactly what he meant. They understood each other, then, completely. _“I suppose there’s something in that.”_

Jopson had stood, pulling his bucket from the deck, folding a cloth sharp and clean across his arm. _“Exactly, sir,”_ he had said, and granted Edward another small, devastating smile. It was a prelude to him leaving, Edward knew, and that, suddenly, he could not have.

He moved without his own permission, caught hold of Jopson’s arm as he passed. _“_ _It is kind of you, Jopson. To comfort me.”_

“ _No trouble at all, sir_.” Close to, he was warm as the furnaces below their feet, and Edward wanted to press him closer still. He looked sideways at Edward, seeming to decide something, and Edward was glad when he spoke again, because he could not for the life of him have summoned a single word just then. _“I would...if I can be a comfort to you, I would.”_

“ _Would you?”_ He was leaning, Edward had realised, he was infringing into Jopson’s space and he ought to stop immediately. He did no such thing. He used his grip on Jopson’s arm to draw the other man closer, and Jopson came.

“ _Sir,”_ Jopson breathed out the word, and Edward, afeared perhaps of what might come after it, closed the distance between them and clapped a hand, presumptuously, ungracefully, across the stewards mouth. Jopson’s hand came over his own, but he did not remove it. Rather, he cupped it with his own, as if Edward’s common, workaday hand, rough with horse tack and working rope, was something inestimably precious.

Things had progressed rather rapidly, after that. They risked discovery wherever they were, but Jopson, folded against Edward’s chest, breathing fast like a hunted hare, followed when Edward led him to the Captain’s pantry, and pressed Edward’s hand to the inside pocket of his waistcoat, where the key to that room that only he held was hidden.

 _Sir_ , he’d said, when Edward put him on his knees. _Sir_ , when Edward’s cock slipped still hard from his mouth. When Edward hauled him up, turned him round and had him up against the wall, he’d said it then too, canting his hips back as though he could not possibly have enough of Edward’s touch, Edward’s prick. The word had rung in Edward’s ears, even as he palmed sweet handfuls of Jopson’s arse, and with every hot breath between them, he knew himself for the worst kind of brute, as far from a good man as he had ever been.

And when he had let Jopson go, brushed a thumb across his mouth and swallowed down the ludicrous urge to thank him, for this entirely unearned gift, he knew with trembling certainty that he would have to have the steward again.

~

Men – officers – have hung for less. This is what he tells himself, every time he seeks out Jopson, buries himself between the stewards thighs and takes his pleasure there. Jopson would lose his position, his pay, would be lashed almost as a certainty, if anyone found them out. Edward will not let it come to that, though – even if it means, for himself, the politer torture of a court martial, Jopson called to testify against him. Prison, perhaps, or the rope.

Jopson knows the risk, he must, has been at sea long enough. His love (he calls him that, in the privacy of his wretched thoughts, the bites and licks he presses to Jopson’s skin when they are alone a prayer for succour) is no green boy. It must be that Jopson permits what he does, Edward knows, by virtue only of Edward’s position. He suffers to be stripped of his neat clothes with rough, greedy fingers, bent across cases of crockery, worked open with spit and wool-grease, to be kissed and held and buggered, all because Edward asks it of him. That Edward’s head is turned by it is no surprise, considering.

If Edward were half the man that Jopson is, he would, by some sleight of will or wit he knows he does not possess, release Jopson from this damned purgatory, as he wishes he could tear the ice that surrounds them asunder. Surely then his mind would find its balance, with the churn of the sea beneath them and open water stretching to the sunrise. But for all his silent promises, to himself and to Jopson, Edward cannot bring himself to stay away. If this is all he can have of the man, he will cling to it with his very being.

With the return of the sun, and no leads visible as far as Mr Blanky and Mr Reid can sight, it falls to Edward and his fellow officers to go in search of open water. He welcomes the exertion, in honesty, the chance to leave the ice-bound ships, to put himself to good use after the long winter. If it did not mean having Jopson gone from his sight, he might be happy in the endeavour. As it stands, he sets his face to the Northern sky, and tries not to dwell upon eyes a far finer blue than any natural wonder he is yet to see.

That they find nothing to the north but more ice is not unexpected – Sir John’s hope, Edward knows, lies with Lieutenant Gore, and Edward can see why with little difficulty. Erebus’ first Lieutenant is a fine sailor, knowledgeable and easy with the men, the only man among the six senior officers who has travelled to either pole, and Edward hopes ardently for the success of Gore’s party, especially with his own run so thoroughly aground.

When he is half carried, snow-blind and exhausted, back aboard Terror, they tell him that Lieutenant Gore is dead. At first he does not believe them, the story seems so fantastical – especially told by Hodgson, perched at Edward’s side in sickbay, telling it with expansive flourishes Edward cannot see but can well imagine. A hailstorm. Two eskimaux appearing as if from nowhere. A murderous bear, that, if Thomas Hartnell is to be believed, is the size and breadth of a whale?

Edward is almost relieved to be confined to his cabin, vinegar paper tucked to the edge of the bandage covering his eyes. He does not lack for company. John, forgiving him it seems for his gruffness this winter, reads to him, though agrees to spare him the psalms – the ship’s library has Mr Dickens latest, and though Edward does not favour the author especially, he is happy enough to lie still and listen to John’s earnest recitation. George attends as well, and pontificates reassuringly that two of his own men found themselves snowblind on the trek back, and one of them a mate, from a good Devonshire family, so it is hardly an affliction of the lower classes as some suppose. He speaks of his family, sometimes, the four tow-headed boys, rapscallions all, and the newest, a baby girl, safe with their mother in London. Edward manages, haltingly, to speak of his own sisters, though he is not naturally given to such easy talk.

They are all of them shocked by the news of Gore’s death, and find what comfort they can in their own safe reunion. Edward even wakes from slumber once to hear what he is sure is Captain Crozier’s heavy footfall by his bed.

He is well tended, and has no cause for complaint beyond the natural frustration of the invalid. Still, he longs for Jopson. The steward has never presumed to enter Edward’s cabin, though Edward has had occasion to wonder if the right invitation – a slip of paper left in Jopson’s pocket, a look at the right moment – might induce him to do so. But it is a mere fancy, and so when he wakes up and catches, rising to reach his water glass, the unmistakable scent of liquorice, he is momentarily surprised. Upon further investigation, he finds on the table a small tin plate, unlikely to be missed, and upon it, a Pontefract cake.

Under the bandages, his ears grow hot. He plucks up the sweet and slips it into his mouth, savouring the bitter taste. His fondness for them, he is almost certain, is something only Jopson knows. He had been caught early in the voyage taking the last of them from a small bowl offered one evening in the great cabin, when the rest of the officers had retired and he was preparing to stand first watch. He had blushed, he was sure, under Jopson’s scrutiny, when the steward had returned to clear the drinks away, and been met with naught but a polite smile and an _“excuse me_ _, sir.”_

He must not allow himself to become sentimental. When Gibson arrives the next morning, reporting that Doctor MacDonald believes Edward will soon be able to shed his bandages and resume light duties, Edward asks the steward if he might trouble himself to fetch a Pontefract cake, as he has an uncommon hankering for one.

He can well imagine the frown on Gibson’s face, the polite one he and the other stewards tend to make when an officer says something that no doubt strikes them as ridiculous. He sounds distracted, when he speaks. “One of those liquorices, sir? I’d have to ask To- Mr Jopson. I believe they’re kept in the Captain’s pantry.”

Edward bids him not trouble himself, but Gibson is conscientious, after a fashion, and that evening he reports that they are quite run out of liquorice, but would he fancy some chocolate, of which they have plenty? Edward hardly hears him, and does not note him leaving. He lies awake until six bells, the taste of liquorice still faint on his tongue, and does not know what he is waiting for.

~

“Breakfast is ready.” It may be his imagination, but Edward fancies there is a challenge in Jopson’s gaze when their eyes meet across the great cabin. If there is, he feels capable to meet it. He is doing no more than his duty in bringing these matters to the captain’s attention. He feels remiss, to have spent the past few days abed in the wake of such a tragedy, of no more use than a broken saddle, and in spite of Doctor Macdonald’s assurances, the return of his sight still seems a boon too miraculous to be taken for granted.

But here it is, and here Jopson is, busy about his own duties and sparing Edward no more than a glance. A blessing, truly.

For it strikes him now, as though his days of blindness had opened some other door within him he had not paid any undue attention before now, presuming it safely locked, that it is no mere thing of base desire, what he feels for Jopson. He is not besotted, nor mad with lust – though he is both of those without a doubt.

He moves through the day in a dream – the whole of the ship seems subdued with shock from the death of Lieutenant Gore, and though Edward hopes he projects the image of the stern First Lieutenant, his mind, truly, is elsewhere.

He catches it up at the end of his watch, when John has gone down to the lower deck and George over to Erebus, no doubt enlisted by Le Vesconte in his attempts to cheer up Commander Fitzjames. The Captain is on deck with Mr Blanky, and Edward knows he will not be missed. He pauses outside the slatted door to Jopson’s closet just off the Great Cabin – so close to his own on the port side as to make the journey a matter of metres, though he has never once made it before.

This faltering is useless. Now he has understood himself, his duty is clear. He strikes the door once with the edge of his hand to pass for an announcement of his presence, and slides it open to step inside.

Oh, good God. Jopson, leaning comfortably against the far wall, is knitting something, scarcely paying attention to his stitches as he makes them, his socked feet resting on the edge of his bunk, and as he reaches up to push his hair back, Edward finds himself imagining, foolishly, coming in the door of a fair-sized house, nothing particularly ostentatious, but comfortable, with bright, pleasant wallpaper and thick curtains to keep out the chill. Imagines Jopson sat by the fireside, darning or sewing, or some other occupation — for that is just the kind of man he is, and Edward would not have him change — and then looking up to see Edward, and smiling.

He smiles now, after a small blink of surprise. “Lieutenant. You seem quite recovered.” His voice is very soft, as though Edward is a mare that might be spooked, as much as to prevent them from being overheard. “Is there anything I can do for you?”

“I should think you know well enough by now, Mr Jopson.” He curses himself the second he lets the words loose, because Jopson’s smile turns catlike, and he puts his work aside. Draws himself to the edge of the bunk, and pads to Edward in his stocking feet. Jopson kisses him, just a quick press of his warm mouth, and Edward would have him like this always, if he could, held against him by one hand at the back of his neck, eyes heavy with desire, turning his body to seek out Edward’s touch.

It is Edward who kisses him this time – he means it to be gentle, but Jopson is eager, nipping and sucking at his mouth, and all too quickly their embrace turns heated. He is delaying what is inevitable, and well he knows it. He wants to push Jopson back into his berth, lay him down and suck his prick until he moans from it and spends in Edward’s mouth, hitch up his legs to have him slow and deep. There is something wild in him, a mad hungry thing that wants to leave its marks on Jopson’s throat, bruise-red above the starched line of his collar for the whole ship to see.

“Door, close the door -” Jopson murmurs, reaching behind them, his other hand busy between Edward’s legs, seeking out his aching prick and stroking through the fabric. The cabin door slides closed, they will not be disturbed, and Edward, mystified as to how quickly this has turned to the entire opposite of what he had so recently resolved, groans against Jopson’s hair. He reaches up and strokes down Jopson’s cheek, feeling out the raw edges of stubble and sensitive skin, so quick to colour when Edward touches him. “Lieutenant?”

Edward swallows. “Tell me to stop,” he murmurs. Jopson, who had been toying with the buttons of Edward’s trousers, tilts his head, as though trying to decide if Edward means it.

“I’d not have you stop, sir,” he says, leaning into Edward’s hand. “Not yet.”

Edward shakes his head, wretched. “We _must_...we must cease this. We must.” There, it is said. Now he must let go of Jopson, must disengage himself, somehow, and leave the room. He must, for both their sakes.

“Sir -” Jopson begins, very quietly, his eyes wide, and it is not to be borne.

“Please, do not call me that. Not now.” He thanks God he never gave in to the foolish temptation to beg Jopson to use his Christian name, because if to give up the little civilities Jopson does him is a pain he can hardly bear, how much worse would it be to abandon such intimacy? It is enough to make him drop his hands from Jopson’s arms, move backwards a step – any further and he will press his back against the door-jam.

Jopson works his jaw, an almost imperceptible movement – sees that Edward notices, and colours. “What would you have me call you?” he asks. The answer to that question is easy enough for Edward to come to, and rather shameful, so Edward ignores it, folding one hand around the other to steady himself before he speaks again.

“All I mean is...you need not concern yourself. I would not do you any censure, I would not...it is simply the way of things. Now, with Lieutenant Gore -”

“What the – what on earth does the Lieutenant, God rest him, have to do with any of this?” Jopson’s voice shifts, a backstreets catch to it he has noticed before, and a spark of temper, too, buried deep but there. He should not find it charming.

He does anyway.

He has used the wrong tack, that is clear enough. Edward resolves to try again. “It is – it is…” Nonsense, and well he knows it, when all he wants is here. And Jopson must know too, to look at him thus. He has wondered at times if Jopson notices, if he sees through to the very depths of Edward’s desperation. Sees that he loves him, quite impossibly much.

Hoped that he had hid it well enough, for the idea of Jopson, steady, impeccable, bright eyed Thomas Jopson, catching any glimpse of the grasping heart of him – the fear of it strips him raw.

Jopson’s mouth twitches. “If I’ve displeased you, sir, or...or done something out of turn, all I can say is I’m sorry for it.”

Edward wants to go to him, cup his face in his hands and swear his love. Instead, he straightens, just as he was taught. “I have never...indulged, in this nature. Before. It is not good for either of us. But it is I who must ask your pardon. For imposing myself upon you, when my rank made it impossible for you to refuse. I do know that I -”

“You think that, sir? That I looked at you, and saw nothing but a first lieutenant?” Jopson interrupts him. “D’you think I’d go with anyone? The Captain? Fancy me bending over for...for Irving, or Commander Fitzjames, maybe? It is _you_ , damn you. Always has been.” Jopson scuffs a hand under his nose, looking at Edward as though he has broken something precious. Edward cannot help himself, for he cannot see Jopson hurt – he reaches out, unsure if he means to beg forgiveness or fold the steward into his arms, or both – but before he can do either, the Captain’s voice echoes down the ladder-way.

“Jopson!” Crozier calls, and then something about frozen ink. The change in Jopson is instantaneous – he tears his eyes from Edward, scrambles to toe on his boots.

“Coat,” he says over his shoulder, and Edward pulls it from the hook by the door and helps him into it, scarcely thinking of what he is doing. If this is the last time he is to touch Jopson, to be as close to him as this, he will cherish it.

“I -” He begins, and is met with a firm shake of the head.

“ _Later_.” Jopson gives him a fleeting look before slipping out of the door, leaving Edward feeling in rather a lot of disgrace. Yet how is it then that hope – despicable, unacceptable hope – remains, bubbling somewhere in his chest?

~

 _It is_ you _, damn you. Always has been._

He suspects he may have been somewhat of a fool. This is not overly surprising, but it does leave him at a loss for how he might possibly make amends to Jopson.

Jopson, who wants him, who has said so aloud as though it should have been obvious. Edward cannot credit it.

At present, all he can do is cling to the whispered _later_ – and so he sends Mr Genge away when he comes with the washbasin and sits, back to his cabin door, parsing over yesterday’s logbooks in a feeble pretense at checking his own reports, which he knows to be accurate, because if he is a poor excuse for a man and a poorer excuse for a lover, he can at least make a go of being a decent officer.

When the knock comes, he scrapes his chair inelegantly backwards. Opening the door, he finds the passage deserted save for Jopson, holding a candle in one hand and a cup of tea in the other. His eyes are very bright. “May I come in, Lieutenant?”

Edward nods – his throat seems to stick, so that speech is all but impossible. He lets the steward in, shuts the door behind him. Jopson places the tea and the candle on the desk, his movements calm and placid. His shoulders are drawn in towards one another, and when he turns, Edward can see a pinch in his temple.

He truly has made a mess of things – and of Jopson, too, it seems. He wishes the steward would not look at him like that, still, soft and knowing with something far too much like fondness in his face.

Edward’s eyes flick towards the door. “Gibson, he might -”

“Gibson is washing paint from Lieutenant Irving’s dress shirt and won’t be done for another hour. Trust me, I’ve been listening to him complain about it all day.”

This makes Edward laugh, a shaky thing, and he thinks perhaps this is what Jopson wanted, because he seems to relax a little, and that can only be good, he is sure. He leans back against his bunk, giving Jopson the floor.

“Paint?” he asks.

“Yes. Some mishap with the watercolours, apparently,” Jopson says, very dry. And Edward can stand it no longer.

“I missed you. Very much,” he tells Jopson – for he may as well be honest, after so long spent loving in silence. “When I was gone. And after, with the snow blindness -”

“Truly, sir?” Jopson looks down at the deck. “Funny. I’ve been a sailor ten years. Used to being the one leaving, y’know? And all of a sudden there’s me, being left. Didn’t fancy that at all. Watched you walk off that day, and I thought my heart’d break. And when they brought you back like that -”

“I was quite pitiful, I must think.” Edward says.

“No,” Jopson says, very firmly. “Brave. Always knew you were, but...especially then.”

“ _Thomas.”_ Edward can scarcely breathe, but he knows he must keep on doing so. “Come here.” If it is a prayer or an order, it makes no matter – Jopson drops to his knees in front of Edward, his head bent. Edward reaches out, places a hand on his shoulders. “Speak to me. Please.

Jopson addresses Edward’s kneecaps. “I worried. That you might be that sort of man who hates himself after the act, and comes to hate the man he’s shared with likewise.” He sniffs, then looks up. His Thomas has known such men, Edward realises, been hurt by them, and his own heart seizes to think he might, even by accident, have fallen among their number. “But you kept coming back.”

Edward, seized by some mad bravery, takes his hands. “I did. I know what I am, and perhaps I ought to be ashamed of it – Lord knows I have been. But I could not hate you were it for all the world. Only…my God, Thomas. You are entirely too good, and kind to me, and I have used you abominably ill.”

“I’d say you used me well, sir. I never had any complaints,” Jopson says, looking at Edward’s hands wrapped over his, a dear soft furrow in his brow that Edward longs to smooth with a finger. He thinks he may as well, and lets go of Jopson’s hands to do so. Jopson’s eyes flick closed, and he leans into the touch. It is this that gives Edward the courage to speak.

“It was unforgivable of me to presume -”

“Presume?” Jopson stares up at him. “That I felt somehow obligated towards you? Did you think me so low?” His hand is curled around Edward’s thigh. “Truly?”

“No – never.” Edward chokes out the words. “Do not even think it.”

“Is that an order, sir?” Jopson rises on his knees, presses his face close to Edward’s stomach, burrows against his shirt enough that he can feel the cold tip of his nose, the heat of his mouth. It is all he can do not to bury his hands in Jopson’s hair and drag him closer, so they might be one thing.

“I...I wished for you to know you have a choice. That you needn’t…”

“Oh, _Edward_ ,” Jopson says, puzzling his mouth around the word, “how can you say such things? You must know I think a bit of you.”

“Just a bit?” Edward asks – he does touch Jopson’s hair then, because it would be sacrilege not to, not to stroke and caress him, to assure him of his devotion.

“Yeah.” Thomas presses his mouth to Edward’s skin, whispers the word against him, and _oh._ “Whole world can spin on a thrupenny bit, my Ma used to say.”

“She sounds a clever woman, your mother,” Edward tells him, and is instantly convinced he has said the wrong thing once more, for Jopson pulls back. His eyes are tender, though, and he rests his cheek against Edward’s side. A sigh goes through him.

“I shall tell you ‘bout her. If you like.” He sounds almost shy. Edward smiles, cups his face. Breathes out, steadily, for what feels like the first time in an age.

“You can tell me anything, Tom. Anything at all. I’ll hear it.”

“Truly? Then, sir,” and here Jopson looks up at him, and if his heart is anything like as full as Edward’s is, it may go some way to explain the shine in his sea-glass eyes – “So you may be in no doubt. I’d like very much for you to kiss me.”

~

“You gave me the last of the liquorice.” It is a ridiculous thing to say, especially considering the position they now find themselves in, entwined in Edward’s bunk with Thomas pressed warm to Edward’s side, their clothes kicked off at the foot of the sheets, but it is what comes out when he opens his mouth, so there it is.

Jopson looks at him, head on one side. “Forgive me, sir. Couldn’t help myself.”

“There’s nothing to forgive, only -”

“I’ll take duty owing, sir, if you see fit to give it me.” Jopson’s fingers trace across his ribs and up over his sternum, just the lightest touch. Huffing, Edward goes up on one elbow to look him in the face.

“Wicked little flirt, aren’t you?” he murmurs. Takes Jopson’s hand in his, turns it over so he can trace his soft palm, down to the blue-black veins of his wrist. Draws it to his mouth to kiss a moment later. Jopson makes a pleased sound, all the usual poised watchfulness gone from his body as he gives himself over to Edward.

They cannot stay like this much longer, Edward knows, but god help him if he will not make the most of the time that he has. He has spent far too long in doubting. He presses his weight onto Jopson, bears him down exultant to the sheets, and on the table, the tea, quite forgotten, turns cold in its china cup.

**Author's Note:**

> [Pontefract cakes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontefract_cake)


End file.
